It will be interesting to observe, now that appeasement has
spread from Czecho-Slovakia to Spain, whether the cracks and fissures which appeared in the structure of the National Government will be repaired. Those of us who asserted that the Munich settlement would not prove the prelude to an era of peace and reason ; those of us who persist (in our inconvenient manner) in questioning the good faith and good intentions of what Mr. Eden (with exquisite tact) calls " certain Governments "; those of us who are looking for- ward with anxiety to the hazardous three weeks between now and March loth ; must yet in decency admit the effect made by the Prime Minister's personality upon the German and Italian peoples. I referred some weeks ago on this page to the fact that Mr. Chamberlain had become a " tremendous diplomatic asset " and have been abused for so saying by many ardent friends. Yet surely only the un- informed or the factious could deny that the Prime Minister represents for many millions upon the Continent of Europe the personification of the civilian, as opposed to the mili- tary, theory? Surely it would be ungenerous even for the Opposition to minimise or to explain away the very potent value of this Continental Chamberlain-worship? And surely, to put it at its lowest, it will be difficult for Paul Joseph Goebbels and Virginio Gayda, when the next crisis comes, to persuade their public that he is the big black wolf of British belligerency? It was this that I meant when I described the Prime Minister as a tremendous diplomatic asset.
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